Sunday, July 11, 2010

Last year President Obama tried to push through his brand of health care reform before Congress recessed in August. The rush backfired and proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back for an already angry citizenry. Americans turned out in droves to congressional town hall meetings that August to express their displeasure. As Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal, members of Congress were caught flat footed by the response and were revealed for the unprincipled, elitist and uninformed blow-hards they have always been.

But perhaps more amazing is the fact that they passed their reforms anyway. It took them a while, and it looked dead on more than one occasion, even costing them "Teddy Kennedy's Senate Seat". But they did it. And they did it despite almost 60% of the country opposed to it.

As elected representatives, voting against what your constituency clearly wants is not the best strategy for reelection. And now its time to pay the piper. Democrats are likely to lose a significant number of seats this fall, perhaps even losing control of the House.

And what is the Democratic response to clear voter disapproval of their policies?

there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don't want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation. "I've got lots of things I want to do" in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June.

This is truly despicable. And blatantly so. They started recess early this year because they don't want to face their constituents with more bad laws just before the election. But they clearly plan to pass every bad law in their play book when actually facing the voters isn't possible. What a horrible, political, tyrannical, disgusting thing to do.